In Returning
by eomerking19
Summary: Because best friends don't just die. Sherlock's comeback. One Shot. T for swearing.


_A one shot a friend and I came up with whilst in a foreign country and depraved of the internet. Have at it._

* * *

John stared at the figure in horror. No. _No_. This wasn't real, how could it be? Surely it had to be a joke. A sick joke. It could never be real.

But the man in front of him was solid, was flesh, and he was staring at John with those damnable verdigris eyes. He looked sad, so sad. Maybe it was the whiskey.

John's eyes flickered to the empty tumbler on the table, next to the stone cold cup of tea Mrs Hudson had left this morning. Not that it had been cold this morning, and damn, wasn't it still morning? Far too early for dead friends to turn up in your living room.

He turned his back to the tall, sad man who looked to much like _him_, and filled the waiting glass. Two fingers, three fingers, four fingers. He didn't offer the man any. The man didn't even make a sound as John walked away, only staring with those sad eyes.

But when he had thrown back the drink and he was less steady on his feet but more sure in his head he stared down the tall man who stared back with a flicker of hope in his eyes.

"John."

He flinched. That voice, so deep... The face, the hair, the clothes. They could be copied. But not that smooth as velvet voice, or those sad eyes. John had never seen him so sad. Or so unsure.

His dead friend didn't ever look unsure, he was practically the definition of sure. But this man who _couldn't_ be his friend was playing with his scarf, fingers twining in the soft material.

"Why are you here?"

God, was his voice always this croaky, this raw?

"I came back."

"You died."

This time the man flinched. And he looked so guilty about doing it.

"It was necessary, John. I had to-"

"Sherlock."

The man's eyes widened. It was him, there was nothing else it could be. John had spent weeks, months after the funeral just praying for this. It had almost been a year. The man - Sherlock - swallowed hard, ceasing the fiddling with his scarf to bring them in front of him, simply held flat at his sides.

"A year, Sherlock."

The man nodded. His eyes were wet, and red.

"I'm sorry, John."

John punched him. And again. An again. And again and again and again. Til his eyes were blurring because he knew that he was crying. Hadn't he cried enough for this bastard? Blearily he realised that Sherlock wasn't fighting him, and that they had fallen onto the carpet. John stilled. He was sat on Sherlock's waist, his hands in either side of his head. Sherlock looked up at him despondently; one of his eyes were swollen shut, and his lips were split in so many places.

"Fuck."

John swore softly through his heaving, shuddering breaths. Sherlock's hands moved to grasp at his wrists and John's eyes slipped shut.

"I've had to bury so many of my friends already, Sherlock. You... You know what that does to people? Burying your best friend?!"

Sherlock looked pained at the last bit. John hadn't know what Sherlock had been through. Most of him argued that he didn't want to know what the man had suffered during their year separation, because there was a chance that it could be _so _much worse than he imagined.

"Did I never tell you? Is that why you left? You. Were. My. Best. Friend."

He snatched his wrists out of Sherlock's hold and then bunched his hands in his shirt.

"John, I... I'm..." Sherlock whispered out of his broken lips. A high functioning socio-path. That was what Sherlock called himself. John had looked it up. Such a person shouldn't look like this, shouldn't look so damn sad. He shouldn't _care _that John had been a barely functioning wreck for the past twelve months. Had Sherlock missed John as much as John had missed him?

John shook his head, now desperate to not hear excuses. He stood up stiffly and made his way to the whiskey. Another tumbler full, maybe. Two, even. That would help him think better. Even if he couldn't actually see straight. Or maybe it would stop the pounding in his head. Sherlock was staring at him through his half closed eyes, blood pooling in the dip of his throat and collar bones. John stared back over the rim of his glass, his chest still not settled. At the bruises beginning to show on that beautiful, _dead _face. But not dead. Alive. His best friend was alive. An he'd punched him. Jesus Christ, he'd _beaten_ him.

"Sherlock."

He didn't need to catch his friends attention. Sherlock was still staring at him, understandingly. How could he understand? Did he not realise what he had done to John? How many nights he had fell asleep with a wet pillow, how quickly all the alcohol in the flat had been drained. Or even all the girlfriends. Babe, he had to call them. They all blurred together now, swapping in and out once they realised how fucking broken he was because his best friend had swan dived off a building.

John watched cautiously as Sherlock clambered to his feet. He picked up the tumbler next to John's filling it carefully. He drank slowly, making a pained noise in his throat as it burnt his bleeding lips.

"I... I need to understand, Sherlock."

His friend nodded, setting his glass down. He stood in front of John, towering as he always did, but his eyes betrayed him.

John just about caught the flash of nervousness that flitted across his expression before it became unreadable. Typical Sherlock, a mystery.

Sherlock leant down, pausing just before their lips met, checking of this was the right thing to do. John neither pulled away or leant forward, he was anchored. He had wanted to kiss Sherlock before, but it had always been fleeting 'what if's. 'what would happen if I just locked my hands in those black locks and kissed him quiet'.

Sherlock then move his head slightly, and their lips met. It's was sweet and tender and not rushed at all, quite tentative and just that bit shy. The apology was tangible and when Sherlock pulled away for breath John took hold of his lapels because like hell he was ever going to leave again.

The kiss delved deeper then, but it was only when John ran his tongue along Sherlock's lip and tasted the copper tang that he pulled away in horror. His friend's - where they still friends, or something else? Was there even a name for...this? Friends with benefits sounded too crude to his mind. Sherlock, then, his face was a mess of cuts and bruises, and his lips were faring no better from John's attention.

John stared awkwardly, Sherlock's face was imperceptibly blank. He gestured vaguely towards the bathroom, feeling a heat creep up his neck.

"Go get in the bath, I'll make us something for dinner. You are staying aren't you?" John couldn't help the quiver of vulnerability that crept into his voice.

Sherlock nodded his assent, an his eyes softened. He lent in towards the smaller man, his head falling onto his, John's shoulder. He mumbled something, then. It sounded like 'I'm sorry'.

"Your stuff is still in your room." John murmured. Sherlock started at that.

"Really?"

"The was always a chance you'd do...this." There was a smile in his voice, and he felt Sherlock shift and smile into the curve of his neck. John pushed at him gently and Sherlock relented, leaving John feeling oddly cold as he watched the tall retreating figure.

Dinner was easily done, numbly, even. Pasta and some sort of out of the bottle sauce. He didn't think his mind could manage anything complicated at the moment. He felt rather sober, though. Perhaps it was the shock.

He heard Sherlock pad over to the table an pull a chair out, but John didn't turn around, instead busying himself with doling the food out. He brought it to the table and slid into the chair opposite Sherlock. He couldn't make eye contact now. Instead he chose to assess Sherlock's battered face, the doctor in him coming out. His face didn't look half as bad now the blood had all been washed away, and surely John had seen worse, but it was different knowing that he had caused it.

"Look-"

John started but couldn't find the words to describe how terrible he felt. And by _christ_ he felt bad.

"John, you don't have to apologise,I understand"

Sherlock reached his right hand across the table. Slowly, the uncertainty still in his eyes. As soon as he made contact John snatched his own limb back, clutching at the edge of the table.

"How can you? Sherlock, you died, _died_. I buried you. It's been a year, a full fucking year. How can you understand how I feel?" Johns voice was harsh, but not as angry as it had been.

But Sherlock was not to be defeated. The same hand as before crept forward again, inch by inch.

John stared down at that hand. He had memories of that hand, of Sherlock's hands. Twisting and flicking elegantly as Sherlock gesticulated madly. Or when he played that damn violin that John hasn't the heart to get rid if because it was just so fucking Sherlock. He must have been staring at the offered hand for a few minutes when he finally reached out.

The tips of their finger tips barely touched. It wasn't the close contact of before, the crushing embrace that had left Sherlock bloodied. But it was enough.

Silently Sherlock began to eat his plateful, using only one hand as he left the other for John's contemplation. John watched him eat, still slightly unbelieving that he was real, that he was HERE. His own hand itched to grab Sherlock's as the niggling doubt grew in the back of his head that even after all of this Sherlock was just in his head. It wouldn't be the first time. But it would be the cruelest. The usual visions ended just before Sherlock spoke or the moment they came within a hairs breath if one another. Finally John snatched up his friends hand and Sherlock looked up at him with calm eyes.

"I'm real, John."

He almost blushed at how easily Sherlock had read him, but of course, this was Sherlock.

"And I'm not leaving."


End file.
